


The One The Owls Call Home

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: A Little Bit Sappy, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Professor Thaddeus Living His Best Life With One Grumpy Lighthouse Keeper, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 14:42:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17747801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: A lighthouse keeper’s tasks were many. The lenses that focused the light of the crystal needed to be cleaned daily, as did the glass that surrounded the room the crystal and lenses were housed in. Salt built up quickly if given the chance, and nothing could be allowed to dim the view of the light even a fraction. Every morning Gladys let herself out onto the catwalk that surrounded the windows, with only herself and the distant sounds of the town below her for company. Well, usually only herself for company.“What are you doing up here?”The owl that was perched on the catwalk railing opened one golden eye, hissed, and then closed his eye again, seeming to go back to sleep.“This isn’t an owlery, it’s a lighthouse,” Gladys grumbled. Still, it wasn’t as if the owl was being a nuisance, and it couldn’t make any more of a mess than the seagulls did.





	The One The Owls Call Home

**Author's Note:**

> So I *maybe* got a little burnt out writing two terribly angsty fics in a row the other week, and this has been sitting in my drafts folder about 1/4 written ever since Beau lost her owl in the first place, so it seemed a good time to finish it!

“Blessed Mother, may your light shine as brightly during the night as it does during the day, guiding those that are lost back safely to your shores once more.“

A screeching, screaming sort of sound drifted up from below and Gladys scowled even as she looked upon the brilliant light from the lighthouse crystal, the blessing of the Mother made manifest. It was not her place to judge the offerings that folk left for Melora, but whenever someone left fish on one of the offering plates it invariably ended up attracting cats and gulls and wharf rats, all three of which would fight over the prospective meal. The rats usually won, probably because over the generations they had become even bigger than most of the feral cats and more than a match for even the fiercest seagulls.

The sounds of animals fighting had stopped by the time Gladys had made her way down the many lighthouse steps, and she opened the lighthouse door fully expecting to see a scene of carnage in the last light of the setting sun, blood and a scattering of feathers perhaps, the screech had sounded something like a gull. What she hadn’t been expecting to see was an owl perched on the body of a rat nearly as big as it was. The owl looked at her, blood spattering its brown feathers and puffed itself up, flapping one wing, the other held stiffly at its side, blood oozing from a nasty wound.

“Hmmph,” Gladys said, not impressed by the owl’s threat display. “Yes, you are very big.”

The owl eyed her warily. It probably couldn’t understand her, she was no firbolg, like the nice pink haired boy who had given her that excellent tea, and she was no druid either. Still, she had no one but herself to talk to most days, and it did no harm to talk to animals as if they were people.

The owl made a grumbling sort of sound and shifted its talons. There was something around one of its legs, like a short leather leash, and Gladys realized that she had seen the bird before, over a week ago maybe, in a cart with other animals waiting to be sold. Gladys had watched the animal merchant through her spyglass for some time, noted that he seemed to treat the animals well, and then had gone about her day.

“You escaped, is that it? Or did someone buy you for a pet and then decided you were too much to handle and abandoned you?”

The owl clacked its beak at her, one wing still raised, talons clenching harder around the dead rat.

“I’m not going to take your rat. Filthy things, those ones are. Carry all sorts of diseases.” More than one sailor had come to her over the years with festering wounds or fever after being bitten by the more aggressive rats. “May it do you some good.” She spoke a word then, magic threaded through the syllables, and watched the wounds on the owl close.

The owl blinked, raising its other wing tentatively, giving an experimental flap before folding both wings and bending its head to its meal.

Gladys nodded, satisfied, and then made her way back inside to climb the many stairs that lead to her room.

**************

A lighthouse keeper’s tasks were many. The lenses that focused the light of the crystal needed to be cleaned daily, as did the glass that surrounded the room the crystal and lenses were housed in. Salt built up quickly if given the chance, and nothing could be allowed to dim the view of the light even a fraction. Every morning Gladys let herself out onto the catwalk that surrounded the windows, with only herself and the distant sounds of the town below her for company. Well, _usually_ only herself for company.

“What are _you_ doing up here?”

The owl that was perched on the catwalk railing opened one golden eye, hissed, and then closed his eye again, seeming to go back to sleep.

“This isn’t an owlery, it’s a lighthouse,” Gladys grumbled. Still, it wasn’t as if the owl was being a nuisance, and it couldn’t make any more of a mess than the seagulls did. She washed the tall windows, thinking fondly of the day when the Wildmother would send her an apprentice and she could have _them_ do the task for her. It was the chore that set her joints aching the fastest, and it would be a great relief to have some help at the very least.

The owl was gone when Gladys went to bless the crystal again at sunset, but was back the next morning, shuffling along the railing, the short leather leash attached to one leg still trailing behind him.

“You’re going to get that caught on something if you’re not careful,” Gladys said.

The owl glared at her but made no move to fly away as Gladys stepped closer. She wondered how young the owl had been when it had been captured to be sold as someone’s pet. Old enough to know how to hunt, but young enough to have gotten used to humans.

Gladys reached for a short, razor sharp knife that she kept tucked into her robe. She hadn’t had to use it as a weapon in years, no one local to the area would have dared attack her, but it was a useful tool and a person could never be too careful. “Now, just **_stay_** there.”

There was magic in the command, magic that would only work if the creature understood her. She had been betting that the owl had been somewhat trained and might know the meanings of a few words in Common, but she wasn’t at all surprised when the owl’s beak went for her wrist. She was old, yes, but she wasn’t stupid, and she was still quick. A deft flick of the knife and the leather parted and fell away as Gladys drew back her hand. The owl shrieked and flew off.

“Hmmph.” Well, it hadn’t been like she had expected thanks, whatever thanks an owl could express. At least the owl wouldn’t get caught on anything now, she had done that much.

The owl wasn’t there the next morning when she went to clean the windows, not like she had expected him to be. The owl was a wild thing, for all that he had been caged for a time. It had flown off to do what wild animals did, hunt and live and breed and eventually die. It was no one’s pet, and especially not hers.

***************

Gladys did not spend _all_ her time in the lighthouse. Sometimes she went down into the city proper instead of just observing it through her telescope. She had supplies to buy, after all. And there were the snatches of gossip that came to her as she walked the streets. Most of it was just idle chatter, but sometimes there were interesting tidbits to be gleaned from the general din. There was a lot of talk about a fight that had happened down at the Restless Wharf a night or two ago, something about murder and the theft of a ship and the possible suicide of a blue tiefling woman, or maybe it had been a ghost, and maybe the ship captain had been haunted and killed some of his crew. It was all confusing, as such gossip was. Gladys remembered the mischievous blue tiefling she had talked to days ago, and had no doubt that the girl was probably very much alive and was much pleased by whatever chaos she had caused.

Gladys felt a tug on her belt pouch and she scowled. The local thieves and pickpockets knew better than to target her. She was a cleric of the Wildmother and keeper of the lighthouse, which made her a friend to many of the sailors and other folk who lived and worked here. However, there were always new people coming through the city who weren’t aware of who she was, who only saw an old woman, an easy mark. She whirled around, ready to deliver a tongue-lashing even sharper than the knife in her belt and was just in time to see the young man who had been trying to rob her scream as an owl swooped down from the sky and hit him full in the face.

Afterwards, after she had healed the slash marks on the young man’s face and given him such a stern lecture that he had cried and sworn to live an honest life from then on, she turned to the owl, who was perched on a nearby barrel.

“I could have handled that myself,” Gladys said.

The owl glared at her, then shuffled back and forth as he made soft little sounds, like that of a much younger bird.

Gladys sighed and reached out to stroke the owl’s head feathers. The owl closed his eyes in evident pleasure.

“Don’t do it again,” she said. “But thank you, I suppose.”

*********

Rain lashed at the lighthouse windows as the wind howled outside.

“Let your light see all safely through the storm,” Gladys prayed as the rain pelted the glass. It was going to be a nasty night to be sure, and she was looking forward to a warm fire and a cup of tea to soothe her aching joints. In the morning there would be work to do, to be sure, there always was, after a storm. Things to repair, people to fix up. For now though, there was the light of the crystal, and the storm.

Lightning flashed and a shadow out on the catwalk railing caught Gladys eye, a feathered, huddled shape.

“Foolish bird,” Gladys muttered. There had to be better places to roost during a storm. Still, the owl would be fine, surely. Wild creatures weathered storms all the time and came out of them none the worse for wear.

Gladys was just about to descend the stairs when a particularly strong gust of wind slammed against the lighthouse. There was no way she should have heard the thud of something striking the glass over the roar of the wind and the sea, and for a moment she thought she might have imagined it. Still, she couldn’t leave without checking, now that the thought had crossed her mind. She opened the door to the catwalk and was immediately soaked to the skin.

The owl was a sodden mass of feathers that didn’t react as she scooped him up into her arms and bore him back inside. He was breathing, so there was that at least.

“Foolish, stupid, idiot bird,” Gladys grumbled as she descended the steps and entered her bedroom, laying the owl on a pile of blankets as she built up the fire.

“Melora sent you to test my patience, didn’t she?” Gladys asked as she gathered her healing magic and stroked the head of the soggy, unconscious creature, who opened golden eyes and blinked up at her.

“You can stay here for tonight, but don’t get used to it. You’re not a pet.”

The owl shifted in its nest of blankets as the two of them dried out by the fire.

************

“This isn’t an owlery,” Gladys said to the two owls in front of her on the railing.

Her owl (no, not _her_ owl, he was not a pet) shuffled on the catwalk railing and nuzzled up against the larger, possibly female owl, making little cooing sounds. Gladys sighed.

“No making nests on the lighthouse,” she finally said to the larger owl, as if the creature would understand her. _Melora, send me a druid so that I can talk sense into these animals._

The pair built a nest on the relief of the Wildmother that graced the seaward side of the lighthouse, in the tangles of her hair. Gladys let it be, knowing better than to interfere with where a mother chose to raise her young, as long as there was no true danger in it. The owls kept the seagulls away at least, and the sailors had remarked that the population of rats down by the docks had been dwindling, so some good was being done. And maybe she felt strangely proud the day the first owlets took flight, but that was neither here nor there. Perhaps she was getting sentimental in her old age.

***********

“Melora give me strength,” Gladys muttered as she looked out at the catwalk railing. The usual brood were perched there, two adult owls and three young ones, but there was a new addition in the middle of the flock, an owl whose white feathers were heavily speckled with black and who blinked at her with bright yellow eyes. The other owls didn’t seem to mind the newcomer’s presence at all, which was odd. They were usually very strict about who entered their territory, often chasing away seagulls and harassing cormorants if they flew too close to the lighthouse.

Gladys let herself out onto the catwalk. The evenings were getting warmer, a sure sign that spring was on the way. “You’re not a local bird,” she said. “Never saw an owl like you before. Did you get blown down here in a storm?”

The owl let out a rasping sort of cry and transformed into a young tiefling with skin as white as the crest of a wave, his horns a twisting corkscrew that added another eight inches to his height. His hair was long and as pale as his skin, feathers from a multitude of birds dangling from his many braids. His yellow, pupil-less eyes looked at her with a measuring, wary expression.

“Hmmph. That’s a trick I don’t see too often,” Gladys said calmly. “Don’t get too many druids down here. May I ask why you’re here, child?” She called everyone child, regardless of their apparent age, but in this case she was pretty sure the tiefling in front of her was barely a teenager, though something in his eyes made him look both older and younger at the same time. He looked scrawny, his clothes worn, and his tail hung limply behind him as he sat on the railing.

The boy said something in no language she could understand, then shook his head. Next to him, the owls crowded closer, the adults making the sounds they used to comfort their young. One of the fledglings flew up to perch between the boy’s horns. The boy reached out and stroked the head of the male owl, the first owl, the owl that was not hers and not a pet.

“The Wildmother—told me— to find the person the owls—called home.” He spoke the common tongue haltingly, with an accent that Gladys wasn’t familiar with. “This one told me you are…” He said something that sounded like an owl’s call mixed with words, then scowled and tried again. “He told me you are comfort, and shelter from storms, and safe for nesting. That is home. It—sounds better in owl.”

“I think it sounds just fine in Common,” Gladys said softly. “Where are you from, child?”

The boy waved a hand. “North. Far north. The mountains. We had a temple.” His speech was improving the more he spoke, but his voice trembled. “We had a temple. And goats. We took care of the goats, and the mountain people, and their dead. We weren’t harming anyone. But they came anyway, the soldiers, and said we were worshipping a forbidden goddess. How can nature be forbidden? It made no sense, but they didn’t care. Momma told me to fly away. She said she’d be right behind me. Except she wasn’t. I flew far away, and when I came back…” He trailed off. The female owl flew up onto his shoulder and began preening his hair.

Poor child. “And the Wildmother sent you to me.”

“She said I’d be safe with the ones the owls call home.” His voice was very small.

Far be it for her to question the will of the Mother, and she had known that an apprentice would find their way to her sooner or later. “She was not wrong. Do you have something I can call you?”

“Lone,” the tiefling said.

“My name is Gladys, Lone. Let’s go inside and get you something to eat, and figure out where you’re going to sleep. The rest we can talk about in the morning. All right?”

“Can the owls come too?”

Gladys looked at five pairs of golden eyes and one pair of sad, hopeful yellow. The owls were not pets. They were wild things. Wild things that considered this place, considered _her_ , home. She held out an arm and the owl that was not hers flew to it, his grip strong but his talons not piercing her sun weathered skin. “The owls can come too.”

The tiefling smiled, a shy, tentative thing, as he gathered up the rest of the owls and together they all headed inside.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm angel-ascending on Tumblr and angel_in_ink on Twitter if y'all want to stop by and say hi!


End file.
